Wells test clean at abandoned Bellvue missile site

By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News

The federal government is nearly done with another round of testing at an abandoned missile site near Bellvue.

The government is attempting to determine the extent of contamination at the site, which was active in the early 1960s. A few years ago, initial testing showed that harmful chemicals used there had contaminated the soil and shallow groundwater in the area, leading to concerns about the safety of domestic wells in the nearby Deer Valley subdivision. With the Poudre River just a mile from the site, some also worry that contamination could eventually reach the river.

According to Jeff Skog, project director for the Corps of Engineers, all residential wells have tested negative for trichloroethylene (TCE), a cleaning solution used at the missile site and then disposed of in a sump below the launch building. The Corps has also concluded that a plume of contamination is moving toward the river at a very slow rate, about 10 to 15 feet per year.

"It's an isolated plume," said Skog. "The TCE contamination does not appear to have moved beyond the field area south of the site and does not appear to be impacting the Poudre River or the canal (Monroe) on further south of the site."

As part of a "remedial investigation" over the past several months, the Corps has sampled 19 residential wells in the area and has installed 17 monitoring wells. The monitoring wells are designed to measure the size, shape and movement of the contamination plume. In April, the Corps will drill three more monitoring wells to fill in gaps in their data.

Missile Site 13 in Bellvue is one of five former Atlas E missile sites in Colorado. The Corps began testing the soil, subsoil and groundwater at the Bellvue site in 1999. Besides TCE, other contaminants found there included arsenic, petroleum chemicals and PCBs. TCE is of greatest concern, since it can cause numerous health problems including liver and kidney damage, impaired immune system function and impaired fetal development.

The possibility of TCE contamination has made some neighbors nervous, since all of them use private wells for drinking water. According to Skog, however, the contamination is limited to a shallow water-bearing zone while household wells tap into a deeper, regional aquifer. Also, he said, the Deer Valley homes are located southwest of the site, whereas the plume is moving southeast.

Nonetheless, Toxey and Betty King, whose home sits about 1,000 feet from the missile site, aren't taking any chances. Since being notified last fall about the contamination problem, King has been hauling drinking water to his home. "It's too close," he said, and he fears the chemicals could flow through cracks in the rock to the lower aquifers. King also believes that property values in his neighborhood have been negatively impacted by the contamination.

"They should run a water line to us from the West Fort Collins Water District," King suggested. "Why wait until there are health problems down the line?" King said other neighbors have also expressed interest in being on a public water system.

Doug Bigge, manager of the West Fort Collins district, said he looked at the feasibility of serving Deer Valley 15 years ago. At that time it would have cost about $258,000 to run a water line to the subdivision, but Bigge said he has no idea what the cost would be today.

Ed LaRock of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, who has been monitoring the Corps' project, said there is "no reason to suspect" that contamination might seep down into deeper aquifers. "The contamination has been there for 40 years," he noted. LaRock said he has been very satisfied with the Corps' work and that the problem of residual contamination will be addressed at the clean-up stage.

A final report on the current investigation has been delayed until fall, Skog said, so that data from the three additional monitoring wells can be incorporated. When it's complete, the report will be available for public review at the Larimer County Health Department and the Fort Collins Main Library. The next step is a feasibility study, likely in 2005, which will investigate options for remedying the situation.

The Bellvue missile site property is currently owned by Data Lock and Storage, which stores documents in the underground facility. Another old missile site near Nunn is also contaminated, and monitoring wells have been drilled there as well.